This week we learned about Thanksgiving! We briefly covered the history of the day, and how Thanksgiving is a holiday that is celebrated at different times all over the world to give thanks for the harvest in the Fall. We also discussed how this is a time for us to be grateful for all that we have. We talked about what makes our hearts happy, and then told the class what we’re most grateful for. Mom, Dads, sisters, brothers, and pets were at the top of the list!
We also celebrated the holiday with some fun activities including a game of “Turkey Says”, following along with a directed drawing, and creating our own “Recipe for Cooking a Turkey.” We hope you enjoy these recipes for years to come, they truly brought us so much joy! Your children are hilarious!
Turkey says fly like a bat. Turkey says jump up and down. Turkey says be a bag. Turkey says touch your knee.
Community Helpers!
We had a surprise visit from some Community Helpers on Monday! Officer Davis and Officer Dennis from the Cuyahoga Falls Police Department came to talk to us about dog safety. We then got to meet a very special K-9 named Dan! But the best part was making the sirens and lights go off on the police car!
Thank you Officer Davis for coming to visit us! We were so excited!Thank you Officer Dennis and Dan for visiting us! We loved learning about K-9 dogs!Making the lights and sirens go off was the best part!Haha we were trying to wake up the firefighters next door!
O-H-I-O!
We wrapped up the week with Mr. John’s favorite day of the school year! We all wore our OSU colors to help the Buckeyes get ready for the Big Game this weekend!
We are Thankful for YOU!
Thank you to each of our families, from the bottom of our hearts, for all your help and support. We couldn’t do what we do each day without you. We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday full of yummy food and beautiful memories!
Peek Into Next Week:
Focus Lesson & Preschool Lesson: Reptiles and Turtles
Kindergarten Lesson: Addition with Golden Beads
Important Dates:
Friday, Dec. 2: Bring Your Parent to Work Day (all spots filled)
Our Blossoms discussed Community Helpers this week! We learned that Community Helpers are people in our community that help us or help others. We learned about firefighters, police officers, doctors, dentists, paramedics, counselors, mail carriers, teachers, and more! We learned how these people help us, what tools they use to help, and what clothing they wear in their jobs.
This child is sorting tools that community helpers would use!
We wrapped up our week of Community Helpers by helping others ourselves. We were very happy to participate in Operation Christmas Child. We discussed how there are children in other places of the world that either don’t have the things we have at home or won’t receive many items for Christmas. We learned that we can help those children through Operation Christmas Child! We packed boxes full of gifts for others and imagined all of the continents our boxes could go!
We hope these boxes we packed bring so many smiles to other children!Inside of each of these boxes are basic necessities, toys, art supplies, and a special letter from one of our Blossoms. In the letter, our students told the recieving child what country they are from, their favorite food, and what they like to do for fun!We are so thankful for our amazing parent volunteers!
Kindergarten Lesson:
Kindergarteners learned about coins with Mr. John this week. They even brought in coins from home to sort and count. In Handwriting, our Kindergarteners finished learning to write loop letters, and will be practicing writing words that contain loop letters next! Both in Reader’s Workshop and Writer’s Workshop, our Kinders learned about subjects and predicates. Our Readers learned how to find the subject within in a sentence and find the part of the sentence that tells what the subject is doing. And our Writers practiced “writing out the whole thought” in their new books, so that we can tell who and what happened within their stories!
Check out our Kindergarteners exploring different coins!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Happy Birthday to our newest 3 year old!
Brrrrr! It’s Cold Outside!
Our Ohio temperatures changed quickly this week! We will continue to play outside, weather permitting, as long as the feels like temperature is above 25 degrees. Please send your child to school with a coat, hat, gloves or mittens, and appropriate outdoor shoes each day. Hats and gloves can be kept in your child’s backpack! Thank you for your help!
All bundled up! We love to play outside, even in the cold!
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT – THE CHRISTMAS SHOW!
A Journey to the North Pole Christmas Show will be Friday, December 16! (Rehearsal will be Wednesday, December 14!) The Blossoms will be singing about Christmas Trees! Your child will need a plain, long sleeve, green shirt , black or green bottoms, and tennis shoes. PLEASE BRING YOUR CHILD’S GREEN SHIRT TO SCHOOL BY THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1. We will be decorating our shirts to look like Christmas Trees here at school and will return them to you the week of the show.
Peek Into Worktime:
This child is working with cursive booklets. We use this work to help develop fine motor skills and prepare the child for writing in cursive.This child is working with the 100 Board, it is currently his favorite work in the classroom! We use this work to reinforce counting in sequence and recognizing symbols from 1 to 100.This Kindergartener is working in her Primary Phonics Workbook. We use these workbooks as a support for the reading skills we are learning. This child is learning about “magic e” at the end of the word and how that special letter makes the vowel say its name. These three Kindergarteners are working with the Square Chains that are found in our Bead Cabinet. This work reinforces the ability to count in sequence. It also introduces the concept of counting in multiples and skip counting.
This week the Blossoms studied Mammals. We learned the characteristics of a mammal – they are vertebrates, they are warm blooded, they are covered in hair or fur, they give birth to live young, and babies drink their mother’s milk. We talked about many different mammals, but focused on three. We learned the parts of a horse, the life cycle of a human, and had a very special rabbit visitor!
We discussed all of the characteristics that make this rabbit a mammal! We were lucky enough to watch him move around and eat. Our favorite parts were watching his nose and petting his soft fur! This is Tito, the rabbit. He is the cutest visitor we have ever had!
Kindergarten Lesson:
Kindergarteners continued their study of telling time. They are now practicing telling time to the hour, the half hour, and the quarter hour. They finished learning how to write loop letters in cursive this week, and will be practicing more next week. In Reader’s Workshop, our young readers practiced rhyming and word families, and read books to Ms. Kelley! Writer’s Workshop saw the end of another writing unit, our young authors celebrated with an Author Share Day! They read their true stories to their friends, and we celebrated the details in their pictures and the words that they have written!
So proud of these young authors!
Book Share Fridays:
This school year we added Book Share Fridays to our weekly routine. At the end of each week one child is able to bring in their favorite book and their favorite stuffed animal. They tell us all about their special friend and then help Ms. Tonya read their favorite book to the class. We LOVE sharing these special stories with your child and can’t wait to keep Book Share Fridays going!
Elsa helped us read The Little Mermaid!Guess How Much I Love You is one of my favorite books too!This book had so many facts about African animals! We had to turn the book sideways to read this cool book about soccer!Ladybug Girl helped rescued dogs get adopted – what a wonderful story!
Peek Into Work Time:
This preschooler is using our Sound and Object Box to connect letter sounds to objects that begin with that sound. This work provides children a unique tactile element to their literacy work. This preschooler is working with our Number Cards and Table Top Rods, with symbols not in order. This work connects the symbols and the concrete representation of quantity plus shows the child the quantities are the same but in random order.This preschool wanted to build the number 1,444. He wrote out the number card himself and then composed the number with the Golden Bead Materials. The Golden Bead Materials are such a versatile component of the Montessori classroom as it teaches the names for quantities in each category (“unit”; “ten”; “hundred”; “thousand”), shows the relationship between one category and the next, offers the child the sensorial experience of the relative sizes of the categories (bulk), extends the sensorial experience of the different categories and the difference in bulk, for instance, between 6 units and 6 hundreds, and introduces the symbols for the quantities in the Decimal System
Peek Into Next Week!
Focus & Preschool Lesson: Community Helpers! (If you would like to stop in and tell us about your career, let Ms. Tonya or Ms. Sam know! We would love to have you!)
Kindergarten Lesson: Currency
Important Dates:
Wednesday, November 16 – Bring Your Parent to Work Day (all spots filled)
November 23-25 – No School for the Thanksgiving holiday
We learned about Trees this week in the Cherry Blossom Class! We learned about the parts of a tree and what each of those parts does for the tree. We know that the roots suck up water and nutrients like a straw, the trunk holds the tree up, the branches hold the leaves, and the leaves make food for the tree! We also know that trees start out as small seeds but can grow for years and years and get very big!
When learning the Parts of a Tree, we begin with the Tree Puzzle in our Science area. We practice the 3 Period Lesson while naming the individual puzzle pieces. The child can then use their pincer grasp to complete the puzzle, giving them a hands on experience. The next step is to complete a Parts of a Tree booklet. The children color each individual part of the tree and then label them. This work offers the opportunity for tracing the word or copy writing, furthering the growth of their fine motor skills while learning to identify the parts of the plant!As we continue to grow in our study of the Parts of a Tree, the children will then trace and label the plant on their own. This work continues to encourage the growth of their fine motor skills by tracing and writing, while continuing to enforce the parts of a tree.
Preschool Lesson:
Our younger Blossoms not only learned about trees this week, but they also studied leaves with Ms. Sam! They learned the different parts of a leaf – blade, veins, petiole, and stipules. Children observed leaves up close to observe the parts. We also made leaf rubbings and watercolor resist leaves.
Kindergarten Lesson:
Our older Blossoms continued their plant studies in Kindergarten Lesson with Mr. John! They studied trees, leaves, and flowers! In Handwriting, children practiced connecting letters together on the baseline to write words in cursive, this was very exciting stuff! In Writer’s Workshop, our young writers continued their work of writing true stories.
Enrichment Spotlight – Science with Mr. John!
Our science experiment this week was about density. Mr. John placed blue food coloring in a bottle of water, and then added baby oil. We shook and shook and shook the bottle to mix the water and oil, but they just won’t mix! Water is heavier than oil!
Peek Into Indoor Recess!
Playing Red Light, Green Light with Aspen! We love to play Duck, Duck, Goose!
Peek Into Next Week!
Focus Lesson: Fall!
Preschool Lesson: Halloween!
Kindergarten Lesson: Telling Time
Bring Your Parent to Work Day! – https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090b48a8a92da6f94-cblossom
Important Dates:
Friday, October 28: Trunk or Treat!
Friday, November 11: Parent/Teacher Conferences – No School for Students https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090b48a8a92da6f94-20225
This week the Cherry Blossom Class continued their study of Animal Classification by focusing on Amphibians! We learned the characteristics of an amphibian: vertebrates, cold blooded, wet/moist skin, born from jelly eggs, live in the water and on land. We also learned the life cycle of a frog and the parts of a frog. Ask your child about the life cycle of a frog, they all know it!
This child traced and labeled the parts of an amphibian. What beautiful work!
Preschool Lesson:
Our younger Blossoms learned about the different types of amphibians this week. They studied frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and axolotyls! They talked about what makes each amphibians different and how they are the same. Ms. Sam also read Frog on a Log to the class and the children practiced their rhyming skills!
We created watercolor resist frogs this week. Aren’t they cute?
Kindergarten Lesson:
Our older Blossoms studied Animal Classification this week during Kindergarten Lesson. They learned the characteristics of a horse, turtle, frog, bird, and fish! They learned the last of the curve letters in Handwriting and will be reviewing these letters next week. Reader’s Workshop and Writer’s Workshop continued hard work!
Reading group with Ms. Kelley! These Kindergarteners are working hard on isolating ending sounds!
Enrichment Spotlight – Music with Ms. Lisa!
Practicing piano and forte by singing our favorite song, John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.
Peek Into Worktime!
This younger Prescchooler is tracing lines and then writing her own, from ladybug to ladybug. Tracing lines helps develop fine motor skills and gives children the foundation for beautiful penmanship. This Preschooler is practicing Copy Writing. Copy Writing gives the child the opportunity to copy words or sentences given to them in order to practice handwriting.This child is writing numbers from 1 to 100. Writing numbers gives children the foundation for beautiful penmanship. Montessori emphasized that writing comes first, then reading.
Peek Into Next Week!
Focus Lesson: Trees
Preschool Lesson: Leaves
Kindergarten Lesson: Parts of a Plant
Important Dates:
Wednesday, October 19: Bring Your Parent to Work Day! 1 spot left! https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090b48a8a92da6f94-cblossom1
Friday, October 28: Trunk or Treat!
Friday, November 11: Parent Teacher Conferences – No School for Students.
This week we started talking about Animal Classification! We introduced Vertebrates and Invertebrates. We learned that Vertebrates have a backbone and are classified into 5 main groups – mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and fish. We learned that Invertebrates do not have a backbone and are classified into many groups. We introduced some of the groups, but will focus on insects and arachnids this school year.
We added Vertebrate and Invertrbrate Cards to the Science area so the children could sort animals into their appropriate classifications. This Kindergartener completed some Copy Writing to share some information about Invertebrates.
Preschool Lesson:
Our younger Blossoms learned about spiders this week! They talked about the life cycle of a spider, the parts of a spider, they counted spiders, and made spider books. We were very excited to make the connection between our Invertebrate lessons and our Spider lessons! And there was a visit from a friend of Mr. John’s…
We added spiders to our Ten Frame Counting work this week. This preschooler found a spider web on the playground and was so excited to see an egg sac in the middle of it!Mr. John brought Charlotte, the Chilean rose tarantula, down to our classroom so we could observe the parts of a spider. We enjoyed getting a close up look at how the spider moved and pointing out the legs and spinnerets. We found out that Charlotte uses her venom to turn her cricket dinners into a goo like applesauce!
Kindergarten Lessons:
Mr. John introduced Kindergarteners to Land and Water Forms this week. My favorite landform is an island… somewhere warm. Ms. Tonya introduced our older Blossoms to curve cursive letters this week, practicing a, d, and g. Then they surprised Ms. Tonya by writing cursive words all week long!
In Reader’s Workshop, the children continued to be sound detectives to sound out words and reviewed color sight words. In Writer’s Workshop our young authors completed their first writing unit where they learned to be writers and learned how to make books! We wrapped up the unit by sitting in the author’s chair and reading one of our books to the group!
So proud of our young writers and how well they did sharing their books to the class!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
A huge Happy Birthday to our Ms. Sam!
Peek Into Work Time!
This young preschooler is sorting apples by color. Early experiences in sorting things into groups help young learners to better observe how things are alike and different—essential early literacy and math skills.This preschooler is using the Tens Board to compose numbers. This work helps a child to connect name, quantity, and symbol for the numbers 11-99This Kindergartener is working with the Vowel Tree. The Vowel Tree is a tactile, engaging way to teach and practice decoding words. This manipulative can be used with beginning readers to more advanced readers. Originally developed as a Montessori material, the vowel tree reinforces skills for all learners; tactile learners, auditory learners, and visual learners.
This week we studied pumpkins in preparation for our trip to Ramseyer Farms! We talked about the life cycle and parts of a pumpkin. We also tasted some more delicious treats – this time all pumpkin flavored! Using our 5 senses we determined that most pumpkin treats look brown, smell like pumpkin, sound like nothing, feel squishy, and taste delicious! Thank you again to all of our parents that donated special snacks to our class, we appreciate you!
Pumpkin Pie was definitely a thumbs up!This Pumpkin Bread was absolutely delicious!Everyone’s favorite part of the Pumpkin Roll was the cream cheese! We wrapped up our 5 senses taste testing with Pumpkin Cupcakes!
Preschool Lesson:
Our younger Blossoms also learned about pumpkins this week! We sang pumpkin songs, danced pumpkin dances, read pumpkin stories, traced pumpkin shapes, and created a special pumpkin craft that you’ll see on the bulletin board very, very soon!
Kindergarten Lessons:
Our older Blossoms discussed where they live in the world with Mr. John this week. They learned that our galaxy is called the Milky Way and promised to bring Mr. John a Milky Way candy bar! They reviewed planet, continent, country, and state. They also practiced their address and completed learning how to form swing letters in Handwriting. Kindergarteners continued to grow in both Reader’s Workshop and Writer’s Workshop! They were sound detectives and practiced reading color words and number words with Ms. Kelley, while they worked on finishing their informational books in Writer’s Workshop with Ms. Tonya. Next week, our writers will read their books to the class and bring them home!
Enrichment Spotlight – Music with Ms. Lisa!
We have settled right back into our music lessons with Ms. Lisa. We have reviewed our vocabulary words of piano, forte, adagio, and allegro. We sang some of our favorite songs and marched around the room.
Check Out Our Handwriting!
Our Handwriting area of the classroom is full of tools to help us learn how to write. This week many of our Blossoms chose to practice Handwriting with the dry erase board. You’ll notice many different stages of Handwriting in a Montessori classroom. Our younger students will begin with the letters they find in their name. Once they are comfortable with that we will introduce them to their names in cursive. Our older students work on each cursive letter individually, and finally learn how to connect cursive letters to form words!
We learned about Apples this week! We talked about the life cycle of an apple from seed, to tree, to blossom, to apple! We also observed the parts of an apple and made our own books showcasing the different parts. We touched apples, looked at apples, smelled apples, and then cut them open to see the different parts on the inside. We even found the special star!
This Kindergartener is working on her Parts of an Apple book.
Preschool Lesson:
Ms. Sam introduced our younger Blossoms to the Farm this week in preparation for our upcoming field trip! They sang songs, played games, and practiced writing skills all while learning about different animals you would find on a farm.
This Preschool student is working on his farm color book.
Kindergarten Lesson:
Our Kindergarteners learned about our state of Ohio this week, as well as the states that surround Ohio. They found Ohio on the United States Map and learned about our state bird, flower, and tree.
Enrichment Spotlight – Library with Ms. Lindsey!
We had our very first Library Time with Ms. Lindsey! We talked about Library expected behaviors and each chose a book to add to our class library!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Happy Birthday to our newest 4 year old!
Apple Week Treats!
This week we used each of our 5 senses to explore delicious apple treats! We tasted apple muffins, apple cider, apple oatmeal cookies, and apple pie! Thank you so much to the parents that brought in treats this week, we appreciate you!
These apple muffins were so good! What a great start to our apple week! We used our sense of touch to explore apple cider. Don’t worry, we washed our hands! We decided that apple cider feels “wet and cold.”These apple oatmeal cookies were delicious!We used our sense of hearing with our apple pies and determined that apple pies sound like… nothing.We really enjoyed our apple treats this week! We can’t wait for pumpkin week next week!
Peek Into Next Week!
Focus Lesson: Pumpkins
Preschool Lesson: The Farm
Kindergarten Lesson: Me in the World
Letter of the Week: Tt
Important Dates: Field Trip to Ramseyer Farms is on Friday! Wear green!
This week we learned about what makes something Living or Non Living. We know that Living things needs food, water, and clean air. Living things also change or grow, can move on their own, and can reproduce. We really enjoyed thinking of all of the living things we know of and looking for nonliving things in our classroom.
Preschool Lesson:
Our younger Blossoms studied “Me in the World” this week with Ms. Sam. We also made books to show where we live, from our planet Earth, all the way to our school.
We found “our Ohio” on the map of the United States of America!
Kindergarten Lesson:
Our older Blossoms were introduced to the continent of North America this week with Mr. John in Kindergarten Lesson. They practiced labeling the countries of this continent and the oceans that surround it. In Reader’s Workshop, the Kindergarteners continued being “sound detectives” to practice their reading skills. In Writer’s Workshop, our young writers practiced stretching out words like a rubber band and writing down the sounds that they hear!
Check out these writers!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Happy Birthday to our newest 5 year old!
What are we working on in the classroom?
Our Kindergarteners practiced building words with the Moveable Alphabet this week. We worked on “stretching our words out like rubber bands to hear the sounds!”Our older Preschool Students worked with our Cards and Counters this week. They are doing a wonderful job counting out one counter at a time until they reach the number.
Teachable Moments!
Our Monarch Butterfly hatched this week, and we let him go on Tuesday. This butterfly is going to fly all the way to Mexico! We were lucky enough to watch the Cuyahoga Falls Fire Department practice their skills at a house near our playground this week.
Peek into Next Week!
Focus Lesson: Apples!
Kindergarten Lesson: Ohio
Preschool Lesson: The Farm
Letter of the Week: Ss
Important Dates:
Wednesday, 9/21, is PICTURE DAY! Bring your smiles!
September 30: Field Trip to Ramseyer Farm – wear green!
This week we learned all about our 5 Senses! Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching! We know that we use our 5 senses to explore the world around us every day. We use our sense of seeing when we match our matching cards or complete patterns in Language. We use our sense of hearing to match Sound Cylinders in Sensorial. We use our sense of touching to match our fabric box with a blindfold and to feel different temperatures with the Thermic Tablets. But our favorite activities this week were smelling spices and tasting foods! We took turns voting if we liked the smells and tastes!
Do we like the smell of cumin?We loved the sour taste of lemon!
Preschool Lesson:
Our younger Blossoms learned about Emotions this week with Ms. Sam! We talked about feeling words, showed feelings on our faces, and were introduced to our new Feeling Pages in the classroom. Whenever we are having big feelings we can take a Feeling Page, color the feeling, and draw a picture of why on the back! These pages will come home in folders and can be a great start for conversations at home!
How are you feeling today?Ms. Sam was feeling happy to be at school with friends!
Kindergarten Lesson:
Our older Blossoms continued their study on Cardinal Directions with Mr. John this week, as well as added information about hemispheres. They were very proud to tell us about the Equator and the Prime Meridian.
Reader’s Workshop is working on either beginning sounds or picture to word matching, while in Writer’s Workshop students are creating a class book about the playground as well as their individual books. In Handwriting, students learned how to form lowercase i and t in cursive.
Mr. John practicing sight words with the Kindergarteners.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Happy Birthday to our newest 4 year old!
What are we working on in the classroom?
Our Kindergarten students were introduced to their Kindergarten Binders this week. These binders will serve as their Kindergarten portfolio where we will showcase all of their hard work!This Second Year Preschooler is grinding coffee beans using a mortar and pestle. We worked on scooping the coffee beans and then grinding them down as much as we could. Our classroom smelled wonderful! This First Year Preschooler is sorting families into the correct color houses! Our students enjoy talking about their own families while completing this work!
Enrichment Spotlight – Science!
Mr. John taught us about carbon dioxide this week with a fun experiment that used the gas to fill balloons for us to take home!
Peek into Next Week!
Focus Topic: Living and Non-Living and North America
